


Postscript

by prof_pangaea



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, post-DANC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:13:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prof_pangaea/pseuds/prof_pangaea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the tragic events outlined in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men", Watson offers Holmes a little of his past, and, indirectly, some consolation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postscript

**Author's Note:**

> A short story I wrote for my friend [Lyra](http://liquidfic.org) after she lost a patient.

   I looked over at Holmes; his face was turned toward the window and the bright countryside through which the train was travelling so swiftly. I could not see his expression, nor its reflection in the glass, but I could see the bleak angle of his shoulders and the way his hand swung listlessly where it dangled over his knee. He had not spoken since we had left the gruesome and tragic scene at Ridling Thorpe Manor. 

  "Do you realise we have hardly ever talked of my practice?" I asked Holmes. He did not react to my abrubt non sequiter, but continued to stare, unseeing. "Perhaps you should have accompanied me on my rounds once or twice, as I have accompanied you on your cases. Looking at a problem in another's discipline seems to train the mind to understand parallels -- to see the similaries in disparate objects."  

Holmes still did not move, even to pretend annoyance at my unsolicited and apparently vacuous speech. I continued.

  "I remember one patient in particular; a young man, handsome, with light coloured hair and peculiarly humourous eyes. He was involved in a fine, flourishing tea business, and was, I understood, engaged to a most charming young woman. On his last trip out to India, however, he had contracted a lingering complaint which turned out to be malaria -- emminently treatable, as you well know. He came to me; he had been referred by his own GP, who admitted his ignorance of anything more exotic than influenza... he trusted me, you see. I treated him over the course of a few weeks, and the young man seemed to rally -- he even promised to send me a piece of his wedding cake. Four days later he was walking through Regent's Park and he lost consciousness. He was awakened by a passing bobby, but he passed out again on the way back to his home. By the time I arrived he was in the grip of a raging fever -- he could barely speak and he had difficulty recognising those around him. He slipped back into unconsciousness and he never awakened."

  I listened to the clacking of the train upon the rails and looked at Holmes' hand, now tensed and gripping at his knee.   

"I did my best for the boy, but he still died." My voice was not nearly so rough as I had feared it might be. "He put his trust in me, but I could not save him."  
   
I think the expression upon Holmes' face when he finally turned around was one of the most singular I have ever seen upon it. After a few moments he turned back toward the window.

  But for the rest of the journey he sat a little straighter, and his hand was entwined with my own.

 

 

end


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